


Beyond Good and Evil

by Kantayra of Yore (Kantayra)



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2004-08-01
Updated: 2004-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-19 03:30:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/196392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kantayra/pseuds/Kantayra%20of%20Yore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fred murdered Seider in 'Supersymmetry'; Spike got the chip out in 'Grave'. Lost and alone, they meet up in New York City and slowly come to discover that the emotions they had believed long dead can still be stirred back to life. And those who abandoned them don't have the final say in what's good and evil... Abandoned WIP.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Month One

When Fred first saw him, she thought she was about to die. The vampire that attacked her had somehow managed to do something the previous half-dozen hadn’t, and knocked her stake from her hand. That was no matter, however. Her years with Angel and his associates had taught her more than one way to beat a vamp.

But, before she’d had a chance, her foe had been a cloud of dust, and she saw _him_ for the first time.

She’d felt cold and distant from the world in the two months since she’d left her old ‘friends’, fled LA, and moved to New York City. No better place on earth to hide yourself among the masses, or so she’d always thought. And she needed to hide now.

She could still see Angel’s angry disgusted eyes, Gunn’s love turning to cold hate, and Wesley… Well, Wesley had been the worst of all in his way. He’d helped her track down her tormentor, found a way to punish him even though Fred had had to deliver the final blow. So he understood the ‘murder’ that had turned Angel’s favor. Wesley was able to forgive her for it. But at a price. That she would become the sweet innocent little doll he saw her as, and let him shelter her under his arm from the world – from _life_.

The thought still gave Fred the shudders. Some ‘friends’ they had turned out to be. Oh, they’d preached a good rant. Killing was evil, no matter that that bastard had sent her to the living hell of Pylea all those years. Forgive and forget. All said while Angel was making the associates at Wolfram & Hart vampire chow for his former family, and Wes was snatching babies, and Gunn – for crying out loud! – had been the one to stand in her way and give her no choice but to kill Seider. But little Fred got lectured and looked down upon for not being the pristine little angel they all saw her as.

So she’d left. She didn’t need betrayal like that, accusing faces and cold stares. Whispered words about her behind closed doors.

She didn’t need them. She’d survived Pylea on her own; She could certainly manage New York City. And it had been good for these few months to not have to worry or feel or have guilt thrust upon her. Just a silent specter in the masses. It was more cleansing than she ever could have imagined.

Until him.

Something inside her told her right away that he was different from all the other vampires she’d ever met. He was more instantly striking for one. Razor’s edged cheekbones, shock-white hair, black leather coat, and piercing blue eyes.

Her breath caught in her throat at those eyes. There was a deep pain buried inside. Betrayal. Alienation. Distrust. Disassociation.

She knew those eyes because she saw them every morning in the mirror. And she knew they probably meant she would die. But somehow it seemed fitting. If she were to finally lose her life to one of the undead, he would be the killer she’d choose for herself.

“Not wise to be walkin’ out at night by yourself, pet,” he commented in a rumbling British droll. The fingers of his left-hand toyed absentmindedly with a cigarette, as if debating whether to have it or her first.

“I can take care of myself well enough,” she shrugged disinterestedly.

He frowned at that, eyes drifting to where her stake had clattered to the ground beside her. Spotted the semi-death wish and understood it.

With long, quick strides, he pinned her back against the wall, and her gaze met his steadily, unflinching and unfrightened. It was all the verification he needed.

She gave him a curious look when he seemed about to move in for the kill, but instead reached down and picked up her stake for her.

“You dropped this.”

“Right.” She took it from him, feeling his icy fingers against hers for one moment. They felt surprisingly good in the sweltering late summer air. She made no move to raise the stake against him.

He nodded matter-of-factly at that. There was a quick flicker of light in the darkness, and he pressed the Zippo’s flame up against the tip of his cigarette. Took several deep drags, making the burning tobacco at the end glow an orange so dark it was almost red.

“Where do you live?” he inquired, as if he had every right to know.

She shrugged and gestured north. “Two blocks.”

“Nice place?”

“Pretty good.”

He contemplated that for a moment. “Gotta name?”

“Fred.”

A slow smirk curved the edges of his lips. “Somethin’ you’re not tellin’ me, luv?” he asked, eyeing her breasts and skirt in turn.

She sighed. “It’s short for Winifred. Winifred Burkle.”

There was a flash in his eyes, as if he recognized the name. “Spike,” he offered in return.

Fred’s turn for recognition, then. “William the Bloody?”

“That would be me.”

So this was the vampire that had caused Angel so many hours of agonizing, moralizing and spiritual hair-yanking. Fred approved and stepped away from him, heading down the street.

He watched her go for a few steps, continuing to smoke his cigarette.

She stopped after a dozen feet, turned back to look at him pointedly. “Coming?”

With a slow smile, he ground his cigarette beneath his boot before taking his place at her side.

The walk to her apartment was completely silent. Both had learned to live with endless quiet and solitude, it seemed, and it bothered neither anymore. Fred’s apartment had once been an office, the fifth floor above a set of financial offices all over a small diner that took up the ground floor. No elevator, so they had plenty of time to listen to each other’s footfalls as they climbed four flights of stairs. Hers feather-light and airy; His heavy but more spry than one would guess.

“Come in.” The command was simple, offered without hesitation as she flicked on the lights to the office-turned-apartment.

He stepped over the threshold, glancing around at the surprisingly homey environment, broken only by the tangled mass of wires and electronic equipment in the room to his right. Like a den of twisted snakes and cold hardware, buzzing softly with the indifferent tune of technology.

He slipped out of his duster and folded it over the back of the couch. “You _do_ know you’re ten times more likely to end up dead once you’ve invited a vamp into your house?” he wondered casually.

“Absolutely.”

“Shouldn’t you been helpin’ the Prancing Poof and his chums?” Boots were kicked aside.

“I left,” she answered simply. “Last I heard, you’d fallen in love with Buffy.”

“Yeah.” A hint of golden anger glinted in his eyes. “I got over it.” He yanked his shirt from his belt and began unfastening the buttons.

She just nodded and slipped her fingers under each shoulder strap of her summer dress. The patterned fabric fell from her body in one graceful movement, leaving her only in her panties.

His eyes darkened with desire at his first glimpse of her delicate body. Rough hands moved to his belt, unfastening it quickly and dropping his pants.

She studied his manhood with growing desire. In some strange way, this felt right to her. No emotions. No tenderness. No meaning. Nothing at all that could hurt her. Just the raw, primal coming together of two bodies that screamed their physical needs, even if their owners would’ve preferred not to give in to them.

Spike caught her up roughly in his arms, vamped out as clawed fingers ripped aside her underwear. They fell back onto the bed, his powerful body practically smothering hers. She hadn’t ever really realized how strong a vampire was before. The corded muscles in his arms felt like steel ropes, and she couldn’t have escaped him now if she wanted to.

But she didn’t. Either he would kill her or give her pleasure. Maybe both. It really didn’t matter. Those that lived cared about death; she merely existed. Felt nothing most of the time, really, and was perfectly content with that.

She certainly felt something when he thrust deep inside her, however. A gasp of pain escaped her lips, and her eyes stared blankly up at the ceiling as she held him to her and urged him on. He was anything but gentle with her. Bruised her inside and out, cut little rivulets of blood into her skin with his talons.

But, nevertheless, her body slowly began its long, drawn-out scream of ecstasy. God, it had been so long since she’d allowed herself anything, and he was large and very skilled, despite his violent sexual assault. With a gasp of release, she finally let her body escape into the bliss it so craved.

Wonderful, pure moments and white light. Nothingness overcome by raw pleasure for a few precious seconds.

And then she was back in her bed, trapped beneath one of the most notorious vampires in the world, and still uncaring of whether she would live or die in the next few minutes.


	2. Month Two

Spike awoke that evening to the scent of sex, woman, and new prey in the night air.

With a yawn, he slipped out of bed, disentangling himself from the nude body wrapped around him. When he had been on his own, he’d awoken much earlier than this, of course. But Fred – naughty little firecracker that she was – had developed a habit of setting upon him as soon as he stirred. Wore him out until well past sunset, she did. Of course, he returned the favor when he returned in the morning just as she was waking up. Nothing like a good rough and tumble after a successful hunt. A little free sex was just what the doctor ordered.

He’d been less enthusiastic the first morning he’d awoken in her arms. Not that corrupting one of Angel’s white knights hadn’t been just the itch he’d needed to scratch. But he’d learned something over the last few months. Ever since he’d won his way in Africa…

 _“Give the Slayer what she deserves…”_

 _“Done,” whispered the Game Master._

 _A flash of white blinding pain in Spike’s skull. He reached up to clutch his head, came away with a tiny piece of plastic and wires in his hand._

 _What she deserved…_

He’d spent months trying to sort out what it meant. Go back to her and…what? Show her that he wasn’t harmless? She already knew that. Try to kill her? He didn’t see much point to that. Tell her he loved her? Right. Get himself staked good and proper, then.

He’d made his way back to the states in the interval, ended up staying in a condemned apartment building with a few street girls, a couple of homeless, and a crazy bloke named Joe. He hadn’t lived like that in years. Free to hunt for his food every night, returning to a place of stony anonymity, using his charms to get one of the girls to service him for free, and then not caring when she left in the morning.

Simple. Basic. Painless.

It was funny how daily survival took one’s mind off of silly, frivolous things like love. Always surprised him. Seemed like the extra free time should’ve given him more time to dwell, not less.

And then one day out of the blue it suddenly hit him that he wasn’t going back. That he didn’t _want_ to go back. And, in the end, maybe _that_ was what she deserved. He’d offered her everything he was and everything he could be, and she’d used him and tossed him aside. So she’d had her chance and didn’t get to have him any more. He was free, free at last…

Which was why he’d been about to bolt that morning when he’d woken up with Fred between his – well, technically _her_ – sheets. No reason to change up a good thing. Had his fun and was time to go.

He’d awoken her getting out of bed in that hour before dawn. Got a sleepy blink…

 _“Are you leaving now?”_

 _“Yeah,” he said blankly, pulling his shirt back over his head._

 _“Don’t forget your coat.”_

Funny last words. They sounded almost like something he’d say. Void, emotionless, empty. They’d met, they’d fucked, and that was that. No mess, no entanglement, no attachment… _No danger._

It had been what had brought him back to her door the next night. Greeted with a bit of surprise, a shrug, and another night of screwing each other senseless. _Safe._

Ironic to use that word for two people just on the cusp of having a death wish. Her for inviting a strange vampire back to her place, and him for going out every night, spotting weak, innocent prey, but letting it go.

The normal human cattle didn’t interest him anymore. Just their defenders, and occasionally another hunter. Because what he wanted was the fight. Claws and fangs, bleeding and bruising, snapping bones and ripping flesh. The more violent the kill, the better. Demon hunters were his favorite – smug, self-righteous do-gooders who thought they knew right from wrong, and they were The Right. Their arrogance made them strong, made them angry, made them the perfect prey. And New York was full of them, a city of all sorts of lovely violence.

He couldn’t always find them, of course, and on those nights he would sometimes even go without food. Occasionally he’d even grab some animal stuff from the meat distributor that was just five blocks from Fred’s place. If he couldn’t have predator, one dull-witted food source was as good as any other. Plus, waste not and all that rot. Humans who went after demons had it coming; normal humans, he was indifferent to; and the pigs and cows in the slaughterhouse? Well, they just got the short end of everyone’s stick, now didn’t they?

He didn’t allow himself to think about how he classified Fred.

So Spike yawned that evening and got out of Fred’s bed just like he did every night. She murmured slightly in her sleep but didn’t wake. Which was fine with him because he was in the mood for a hunt tonight, not another fuck.

He fished a jar of pig’s blood from her fridge. He kept it here because it was close to the butcher, and he didn’t have a fridge back at his place. And, technically, because he was sort of living here now. So he liked living in nicer surroundings. No harm in that, right? Seemed like such a waste to leave that big bed empty in the daylight hours, anyway. He and Fred had never discussed it – they never really said much to each other aside from gasps and moans – but they’d managed a system of living together where they saw as little of each other as possible. It suited them both just fine.

He helped himself to the microwave, squeezing against the counter to get through the kitchen. There was a large, ripped-apart computer – or, at least, Spike _thought_ it was a computer – sprawled all over the kitchen table and off the edges. It hadn’t been there last night. Made it bloody well near impossible to move.

With a yawn and a hint of fangs, he downed the warmed blood, left the cup in the sink, and escaped out into the chilly night. The wind whipped through the narrow corridors between the buildings, sending discarded newspapers and aluminum cans rattling down the street. He walked past a few flickering florescent lights in closed shop windows, the occasional banner that proclaimed ‘Happy Halloween’. Even a cardboard cut-out vampire baring its fangs stuck to the window of the auto repair shop. Spike grinned back, fangs glistening in the pale orange streetlight.

Oh, this was the perfect night for a little mayhem. All the good kiddies were tucked safely in their warm beds, and only those with a firm mission ventured out into the chill. Or those with no body temperature.

He passed two fledglings that had found themselves late night transients. Scented the air with warning that bigger hunter was in the area, but left the first to his kill. The second had grabbed a girl that shrieked like a certain girl who’d once been his only friend. After a moment’s thought, he’d staked the vampire, let the girl run away screaming. After all, he was hoping for something with a bit more bite to it tonight.

And he got it in the alley outside the local bodega. Shifting to the shadows, he watched the two hapless Tlyral Demons that had gotten themselves caught in the demon hunters’ snare. Six of the humans – five men, one woman – came at the pair of hunters, axes glimmering in the night-lights.  Spike watched them finish off the demons, watched the conviction and sweat on the woman’s face, and licked his lips. Black hair, dark eyes, tanned skin, athlete’s body, and not much over twenty.

He closed in. Snapped two necks before the alarm even sounded. Tangled for a bit with the leader, and offed another of the lackeys that tried to get in his way.

The fifth man fled when he finally sunk his fangs into the leader and ripped out his jugular. Spike let the man go. Because, just to prove her point, the woman had remained, complete with crossbow.

He ducked the first shot, pinned her body beneath him before the second. Too late, she realized her error and tried to scream. He muffled the sound with his hand, grinned when her teeth sank into his palm, and returned the favor on her neck.

She shuddered, stilled, then finally reached up to clutch him to her.

She came when he finished her, a final gasp of release.

Intoxicated by the sweet taste of her blood and the scent of her come, gold danced in his demonic eyes. He wanted more. He knew where to get it…

And, as he entered the apartment in a flurry of black leather, bright red lines of blood trailing down the sides of his mouth, Fred didn’t even flinch.

“Any of that yours?”

He didn’t answer, tackled her to the bed instead. Took her from behind once they were naked, as hard as he thought she could take it. Oh, it was better this way, anonymous, emotionless, no faces and no identities…

He shoved his cock as far up her pussy as he could get it, roared as he shot his seed into her womb.

She came with him, and they collapsed to the bed.

Absolutely perfect.

After all, what more could a bloke want?


	3. Month Three

Fred missed California for the first time that day. Texas, too. Hell, any place that didn’t turn freezing in early November. She’d had to go down to the University that day to meet with her bosses and discuss how her latest project was coming along. It had been very chilly, and she’d huddled into the subways for warmth. It was one of the few times she regretted now having a car.

But, with the vital matters of earning the money she needed to live taken care of, she returned home to feel that blank disinterest take over her once more. Flurries were falling, and they made her flesh as cold as she felt inside.

Another day.

More surviving.

More trying to forget.

More nothing.

It was well past sunset when she got home. Spike would’ve already gone out for the evening. That was fine with her. She felt overwhelmed, bombarded from all sides just by the meeting that afternoon. She so rarely saw people for any length of time. And had to interact with them even less.

She knew she was craving solitude more and more these days, turning deeper into herself. She’d done that in Pylea, too. When the world was bleak and horrible and the only thing worth experiencing was her own mind, her own intelligence.

She’d work on the new system specifications tonight, perhaps. Do a bit more of the math for her new paper. Find the peace that only analytical thinking gave her anymore.

Her apartment was as deserted as she’d expected it would be. Only the mussed sheets on the bed and three blood packets in the refrigerator indicated that anyone else had ever entered her sanctuary.

She didn’t slip off her shoes, still fighting the chill, and headed for the kitchen. Food. Food was necessary to survive. She knew she forgot to eat at times. Those spans when she’d spent several days completely absorbed in her work, where calculations flashed behind her eyes in all their complexity, and every fiber of her being was focused on seeking the answer to some ephemeral problem. It was the only time when she could just _exist_ , unaware of the deep misery that had worked its way into her heart. Peace in oblivion.

But she was cold today, and food would warm her. Sad that that, rather than starvation, drove her into the kitchen. The cupboards were spare, almost empty. Like no one lived here at all, or whoever did had been away for a long, long time. She didn’t dwell on that.

There was a soup can at the far back of the cabinet. Cheese and lima bean. Cheap brand, too. She couldn’t have imagined ever buying it. But, then, the way she went through her daily, menial tasks, half in a trance, she might’ve just grabbed it blindly.

It sounded disgusting.

She heated it, anyway.

While she waited, she wandered into the bedroom and flicked on the tiny TV. Spike had brought it in one day, although he rarely watched it. Or, at least, he rarely did while she was around. She hardly ever watched it, either. The staticy, flashing pictures weren’t enough to erase the memories of her past. And she didn’t crave the companionship of mindless chatter.

But she didn’t have anything else to do while she waited for the soup to heat, so she sat back on the bed and flicked through the channels. Static, static, hockey game, static, news, some cop show, static, static, static, static, Lawrence Welk, static, static, static…

Blankly, she clicked through the almost endless static. No cable and a crappy bent antenna. She wondered where Spike had salvaged the thing from a junkyard. It certainly looked like something someone would’ve discarded twenty years ago.

Static, static, western.

She paused on that channel, surprised at herself for doing so. She’d loved westerns as a kid, of course. Black and white, good and evil, cowboys and Indians. She wasn’t a kid anymore, though. Hadn’t been for a long time, and she knew that the world was dark and dismal and gray all around.

But then she saw that it wasn’t one of those old westerns where no one’s hat ever fell off and everything was clean and dust free. No, this was one of those darker movies, where the ‘good’ guys were possibly more evil than the ‘villains’, and everyone looked diseased and miserable and…

The oven timer dinged.

She left the TV on as she went to get her soup. The pot on the stove had coagulated into an orange mush with green lumps. It was enough to make Spike’s blood in the fridge look appetizing. She poured it into a bowl anyway. _Waste not._

The bad guy – or was it the good guy? – had an informant strung up, his hands tied to a fence. One by one, he was breaking the man’s fingers to get information. Fred kept her attention on the screen, as she ate. Distraction kept her from tasting the lumpy soup too much.

Even at their darkest, these old westerns hadn’t been that bloody. None of the slow-motion squirting blood garbage that movies used today in a vain effort to keep audiences shocked. Fred knew that Seider had bled when she’d shot that bolt through her heart. He’d bled all over the place, she could remember now. But that wasn’t the shocking part. No, the old movies had it right…

It was watching the light fade from another human being’s eyes, and knowing that – in your own world – the cessation of that life was worth it. It was about being in the killer’s shoes yourself, seeing the others around you react in false horror. Because that was how people were _supposed_ to react. People who screamed for the death penalty would scream just as loudly in outrage of the pretend violence on the television. Hypocrites, who would never see beyond the narrow bounds of their own worldview.

Angel – not even Angelus, but just Angel – had killed hundreds, thousands. Gunn had killed hundreds. Wes had killed hundreds. If not humans, than other sentient beings on this planet. Beings who really didn’t kill much more than they themselves did.

Hypocrites.

Hypocrites, all.

Fred’s one killing had _meant_ something. It meant justice and revenge and salvation to all of Seider’s future victims. And she didn’t regret it one bit.

She was shaken from her thoughts when the door open. Scrambled to put the empty bowl on the bedside table and grab her baseball bat. Blinked in surprise when she saw her evening visitor was Spike, of all people.

Shaking the flurries off the shoulders of his jacket, he looked up at her.

“Everything all right?” she asked hesitantly.

He shrugged. “Hate huntin’ in the snow.”

She nodded and turned back to the bedroom.

With nothing else to do, he chucked off his boots and duster and left them by the door. Cautiously, he followed after her to find her sitting back against the pillows.

“I’m watching a movie,” she explained blankly.

“Right.” A moment’s hesitation, and he sat on the edge of the bed to join her.

Fred didn’t protest. It was funny. Only minutes ago she’d wanted to be alone. And she still did. But something about Spike’s quiet presence as he lay on his stomach – eyes riveted to the screen, fingers tracing absentminded curlicues in the bare flesh of her ankle – gave her the same sense of peace that being alone did. He wasn’t intrusive. He just _was_. And she could be with him and not feel the stress she usually felt with other people. With him, she was still alone.

And, with that thought, she turned back to watch her movie. This wasn’t a bad way to spend a cold night, at all.


	4. Month Four

For the first time, in as long as he could remember, Spike was excited about something.

Fred had – quite wisely – pointed out a while back that if he hid inside every time it snowed, she wasn’t making enough money to keep him supplied in blood throughout the winter. So, grudgingly, he’d started going out in the worst New York had to offer. And, really, once you got used to it, the cold and the snow weren’t _that_ bad. In fact, there were some rather pleasant things about winter.

First and foremost, the sun rose later and set earlier. That meant that he could pay visits to human establishments more and more often. And then, even when the sun was out, the days tended to be overcast. Enough that he could walk around outdoors.

It had been a long time since he’d left England, and he’d almost forgotten how liberating it was not to be confined by the sun. California had been the worst, of course, where he’d had to resort to dashing about beneath a blanket just to fight that cooped up feeling.

So living in a place where he could move about almost as freely as any human made things better for him. It was almost enough to brighten his spirits in and of itself.

He had a far more delightful prize tonight, though. And he’d realized with sudden surprise that it was something he wanted to share. He _wanted_ someone else for the first time since he’d left Sunnydale. And, lucky him, Fred was just waiting back home, sitting in that apartment.

He entered with a triumphant flourish, barged right into her little room with the computers and pulled her out of her seat.

“What are you—mmf!” she managed to get out before his lips crashed down upon hers.

Whatever her initial objections had been, she was eager now. She jumped up and wrapped her legs around his waist. The momentum sent him staggering back against the wall.

Yeah, a good hard shag. That was just what this day needed to be complete.

She wore skirts. Convenient, that. It was no trouble at all for him to spin them around, press her back against the wall, and push up inside her. He’d only barely just gotten his zipper down far enough, and it grated against his skin, but he didn’t care. Her long skirts tangled around them, and he ripped them in his eagerness.

Hisses and gasps escaped her lips as he drove into her womb hard and fast. Little hands clutching at his shoulders, eyes squeezed shut tight in pain/pleasure, tiny body filled almost beyond capacity with his dick. Oh yeah, this was the unlife…

He buried his forehead against her throat, thrusting ever faster, losing all sense of control or rhythm. He felt her body shake around him with orgasm, and he exploded inside her, roaring triumphantly.

They took several shaky breaths afterwards to steady themselves. He lowered her almost gently, supporting her as she tried to stand on shaky legs. He felt apologetic now that he’d ripped her skirt. He knew money was tight.

“I can mend it,” she commented, as if reading his mind. She headed off to the bedroom to change.

Impatiently, he followed after her. “Got somethin’ to show you, luv,” he commented from the doorway, forehead leaning against the frame as he watched her frail little form slip out of skirt and panties. He was hard once more at the sight of that pale little ass of hers, but he contained himself. Plenty of time to milk that bounty later. And places closed and such, so they were on a bit of a schedule.

She blinked up at him. Not that he was surprised. Aside from the fucking, they didn’t really do anything together. Well, Thursdays had become something of a regular movie night – especially now that he’d pirated cable from the neighbors across the way – but that was about the only time they interacted. Still, she shrugged like she didn’t care much one way of the other.

“I need to clean up.”

“Right,” he agreed. “But be quick.”

She nodded and vanished into the bathroom. He listened to the sound of water and, for one brief moment, almost thought to object. There was something pleasant about knowing a girl was holding in his spunk, her panties dripping with it. He’d mentioned something of the sort to Buffy once; she’d called him a pervert. Bloody bitch.

Fred emerged from the bathroom, dressed once more, pussy freshly scrubbed, but still smelling faintly of his pleasure. He tossed her her jacket. “We’re going out?” Slight surprise, but no objection.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he headed out the door, waiting only long enough for her to fit the keys into the lock. Hands buried in the pockets of her winter parka, she followed, not even bothering to ask where they were going.

It was only a short walk to the subway stop. Fred gave him a speculative look. He grinned, caught her shrieking up in his arms, and then – with lightning-quick speed – dashed through the subway entrance, up and over the turnstiles, and onto the platform all within the blink of a human eye.

“Saves on tickets,” he joked lightly, setting down a slightly shaken Fred in one secluded corner.

She nodded and gave him this almost-smile. Sweet and innocent, like she knew she’d just done something naughty but had had too much fun with it to care. He took her hand, unthinking, and led her to the train. It was necessary, really. The crowds were thick here, and he didn’t want them getting separated. That was more worry than he needed.

There were no empty seats, of course. He grabbed one of the overhead bars and held onto Fred with the other hand. She wrapped her arm tight around his waist for support, and the subway car took off.

They didn’t speak. Just stood like that, in a loose – but necessary – embrace, waiting as the stops past. It suddenly occurred to Spike that anyone watching them must’ve thought she was his girlfriend. Strange notion. But a meaningless distinction, he supposed. After all, they fucked each other silly every night.

He could tell when she began to get impatient, but luckily it was only two stops from their destination. “Almost there, luv.”

She nodded and pressed her face into his chest, and he realized for the first time that this crowd was upsetting her. _Could always clear the car…_ He stopped that thought before it had been completed. He’d done that once, on this very subway. Flashed some fangs and bought himself and Nikki a free arena for their final battle to the death.

Back when he’d been in love with Bu— _Before_ , he corrected internally, he’d almost come to view the incident with shame. Insane, really, that a vampire shouldn’t relish in the Slayer’s death, crying out his ultimate victory from the rooftops. Just went to show how fucked up he’d gotten back in SunnyD, his world turned on its head.

Now, he thought about his two greatest kills with pride. And there was almost something reassuring about that. He was himself again. Big Bad was back to stay this time, and no bird was going to drag him down again…

“Here we are.” He pulled Fred along behind him as they climbed back up to the street. It was out and out snowing now, and he turned up the collar of his duster. She yanked this dorky looking yellow hat out of her pocket and put it on her head.

Still, it was fucking _cold_ , and the two of them ran the three blocks to the little garage where Spike had met the new love of his unlife.

“Closing in twenty minutes,” Gus, the owner he’d talked to this morning, warned him.

“Won’t take but a moment,” Spike promised.

Fred’s expression was turning increasingly curious, but he enjoyed this little moment until his unveiling. They passed the mechanic’s garage and moved into the storage garage behind the repair shop. It was warm in here, perfectly conditioned to take care of the vehicles within.

He watched Fred’s expression change to a secretive little smile when she realized the absurdity of his clandestine mission. He gave her a smirk back, guided her to the end of the aisle, and pointed her to the bike at the end.

“That’s my new baby,” he announced proudly.

She let out a little giggle. The sound stunned him. He’d never heard her laugh before, he realized, never even thought that she could be girlish. She was a good fuck, a warm body, a place to stay. But never a person before, not _really_ …

“It’s the middle of winter, Spike. What are you going to do with a motorcycle?” she finally asked, still amused. Even had the common sense not to question him about where he’d gotten the money. He could respect a girl with brains enough to respect his privacy.

“Well, store it here ‘til spring, right?” he countered. “And ‘s not _just_ a motorcycle.”

“Oh?”

“ _That_ is a Ducati 996. Italian red, of course.” He puffed up with pride at the sleek beauty before him.

“Oh, of _course_.” She giggled again. It was a light, airy sound. Free, somehow. He was surprised that he liked it, liked causing it.

“In the spring, when all this bloody snow melts, ‘ll take you for a spin on her,” he promised. “Get out of this city and into the countryside. Wind blowin’ all your worries away…” He paused, frowned that he was getting all poetic. Ah well, motorcycles did that to him.

He banished to the back of his mind the other alarming implications. That he was planning on staying throughout the winter. That he wasn’t going anywhere. It was a choice he’d made without even thinking about it. Turning this little arrangement of theirs into something more permanent than he’d been looking for. But he ignored all those thoughts. No sense spoiling a good mood.

“Sounds fun,” Fred agreed.


	5. Month Five

Fred had learned, even without having to try to do so, that Spike was subject to frequent mood swings. The few days when he had highs fell down to crashing lows, almost bipolar in their nature. He was also (both literally and metaphorically) an emotional vampire. When he was at his peak, she found it almost impossible to keep his enthusiasm from creeping into her as well. And when he was down, the world just looked a thousand times bleaker.

Today, he’d been down for almost two weeks straight. And he hadn’t left the apartment in four days.

At first, it had been because of the January blizzard that swept through the city. The snowdrifts had made it impossible to hunt that first night. But then the snow had turned to bitter cold. They’d thought they’d experience cold before, but nothing like this.

The scientist in Fred knew that temperatures below zero existed, but they’d been an abstract in the past. Conditions to be found only in the laboratory or on some nature special about Antarctica. She’d never imagined that normal, every day people _experienced_ below-zero temperatures throughout the winter. And, not only did they survive, but they walked out and about. Which meant Fred had to too.

In fact, she had to quite often now that Spike refused to leave bed. It was getting harder each day, the temptation to just stay there beside him and let oblivion wash over her. But she’d needed groceries, and – more importantly – he’d needed blood.

Fred wondered sometimes whether she’d just let herself waste away in this apartment if she didn’t have him to provide for, too. On days like today, she was convinced he’d saved her life.

She rushed inside the isolated warmth of her flat, slamming the door shut behind her. Despite the clothing she’d bundled herself up in, she could feel the cold seeping into her limbs. She was amazed her teeth weren’t chattering.

She heard a slight mutter from the bedroom but ignored it, heading into the kitchen to put away another week’s worth of food and blood. Boxes lined up neatly in the cupboard, blood on its own special shelf in the fridge, milk and orange juice on the one opposite it. She’d treated herself that day, due to the cold, and bought a bag of store-ground coffee beans. They warmed in the heat of her apartment and let off a delightful fragrance. It almost felt homey.

When she was done putting everything away, however, she was faced with nothing left to do. It was too late in the day for coffee unless she wanted to sit up all night, buzzed, listening to Spike’s little whimpers. But she was still cold.

There was only one place in the apartment that was any warmer.

She approached the bedroom door cautiously. The lump in the blankets didn’t move, and she sighed and approached the bed. He was awake, she could tell, but he wasn’t saying a thing. She shrugged it off as trivial and prepared for bed. Even if he had no warmth to give, he retained heat well, and the bed was undoubtedly still warm from when she’d last left it.

“I got you more blood,” she commented casually.

“Did you now?”

She started in surprise at the sound of his voice. After days of moody, depressing silence, his voice was shocking, sharp and intense. “We were out,” she explained absentmindedly.

“Feeding monsters now, are you?” he retorted icily. He turned under the covers and sat up to face her. His chest was bare, and every muscle was highlighted by the dim yellow light from the kitchen. He was beautiful and dangerous all at once, his head tilted to one side, eyes shadowed in blackness so that she couldn’t tell whether they held menace or lust.

“I’ve met worse monsters than you,” she answered.

“Oh?” His voice was deadly now, and she paused in her motions. Some instinct was telling her to run. There was something off about him, something wrong. She shouldn’t get into that bed. “You fuck those other monsters, too?”

She frowned. “No.” A pause. “You’re not like the other demons I’ve met.”

“Amn’t I?” He chuckled, rising from the bed, circling her slowly, predatorily. “Shall I tell you about all the people I’ve killed? Helpless little girls just like you?”

“I’m not helpless.”

“No,” he agreed cruelly, “you just don’t give a fuck.” His hand caressed her cheek.

She started at first, almost drew back, but then she saw the look in his eyes. And it wasn’t menace or lust, danger or desire. It was pain. Pure, raw pain. And that squelched whatever fear she’d felt. Her hand came up to hold his hand against her. A simple gesture, minute and insignificant, but she thought then that it was the most intimate touch they’d shared. “I’m not afraid of you,” she explained calmly, “because I’ve seen monsters. I’ve hidden from them, feared them, hated them, killed them. I _know_ them.” She stepped closer, her lips brushing his thumb. “You’re not one of them.”

His expression softened into awed disbelief for one second before rage took over him. “What do you know?” he pulled back angrily.

For a moment, she thought he’d strike her, and she flinched. But he directed his anger into the wall, instead, leaving a fist-shaped hole.

“What makes you know better than any of them?” he demanded. “No, you’re just a ghost. Too lost to even care that you’re lettin’ a cold, dead _thing_ into that little pussy of yours each night.” He caught her by the shoulders.

She didn’t flinch this time. Not even for a second. It was as if something clicked in her right then, and she _knew_ with absolute certainty. They’d destroyed him too, gotten to him. Just like they had her.

He threw her back onto the bed roughly, covered her body with his, kissed her with bruising intensity. She felt her lip split, tasted blood against her tongue. And then he was lapping at it, drinking it, reveling in her life. He pulled back, and he wore a demon’s face. Narrowed yellow eyes and sharp ridges, fangs glinting in the reflected light.

She watched him, studying this new face. Marveling at how it was him and wasn’t. He yanked down her pants; she shimmied upward to assist him.

“See what you’re fucking?” he demanded, leaning in, fangs inches from her face.

She didn’t even blink.

He plunged inside her, hard and fast. And he wasn’t gentle. He was rougher than he’d even been with her before. Cock stabbing into her wildly, no thought for her pleasure. “See the monster?” he hissed.

She clenched her fists in the sheets, fighting off the pain. God, he was bruising her, bleeding her, she was sure. This was pain like she’d never known it before, raw and cold. And, worst of all, in the midst of the pain, there was a hint of pleasure. Faint at first, but growing ever stronger.

“Please…” she whimpered.

“Please, what?” he growled. “Stop? Make the pain stop? The hurting stop?”

“Please,” she repeated shakily, “more.”

He started as if he’d been slapped, growled again and tried for harder, but the fight was slipping from him now. His game-face began slipping too, and she could tell he was fighting to maintain it. “Just a cold, dead thing,” he whispered against her cheek.

She knew she’d shed tears from the pain, then, because he was licking at the tear-tracks. Monster mask still on, he was trying to wash away her pain with pleasurable caresses.

And she felt the pleasure of their union now. Despite the damage he’d done, the slow rocking motion of his hips was still amazing. His fingers were on her nipple and then her clit, stimulating her the way you would a lover. And that almost caused more pain than the rough fuck she’d gotten earlier had.

“Please, harder, rougher,” she demanded.

“I-I can’t…” His voice was shaky.

And then his thumb twisted her clit just right, and she came, not from some beast but from some broken shred of a man. She _knew_ it; she’d known it all along, in some way. He’d been like her, fragile on the inside, eager for love and acceptance, and then denied. _Monster._ They’d never used the word on her, but she’d seen it in their eyes, felt its stigma burned into her flesh.

And so she didn’t even begrudge him when she came softly, gently, warm and contented.

She heard his moan, held him close, pressing his body into hers as he poured everything he was into her. He buried his face in her throat, and for a moment she thought he’d cry as well. But he didn’t. He just clung to her, as if desperate for something unfathomable to her chaotic mind.

“’m sorry.” The soft whisper finally brushed her flesh.

“For what?” But, even then, she knew. He pulled out of her, and she could see that she was bleeding, indeed. Hurt and broken inside.

“’m so sorry…” he pleaded with her for forgiveness.

Tentatively, she reached up and stroked his hair. “There’s nothing to apologize for,” she assured him softly, hating both that she cared too much and that she didn’t care enough. “It wasn’t you…”

“Oh, but see, luv, it _was_ me,” he insisted.

She shook her head. “It’s just a scratch. It’s nothing.” Her lips pressed against his forehead, and he seemed to relax. “They lied to you,” she informed him. “You’re not a monster at all.”

“How do you know?” he countered. “Maybe you’re a monster, too…”

“I _know_ ,” she insisted vehemently.

And like that, bleeding and broken, they fell into a soft sleep in each other’s arms.


	6. Month Six

Comfortable.

It wasn’t a word Spike had given much thought to in the past. All the relationships in his life – cruel and wonderful, bad and good, painful and blissful – he’d never really felt _comfortable_.

He considered the word as he entered the apartment in the hour before sunrise. He kicked off his boots on the doormat. No sense in tracking mud and snow all over the apartment. They both hated cleaning, so they did all they could to avoid it as much as possible.

Out of a century’s habit, he checked the blinds. Closed, of course. Fred always kept them closed, what with her flammable roommate. Not that there was much of a view, anyway. A brick wall to the north and the apartment building across the street to the east. Still, it was part of Spike’s nightly routine, and so he checked the blinds.

Secure for the day, he slipped into the kitchen. Several minutes of fumbling in his duster pockets and he found several crumpled bills. He’d plucked them off his victim of the night. A Fyarl with a pair of air-headed teenagers he’d picked up for lunch.

One girl had been dead and the other dying when Spike arrived. He’d given the massive demon a good kick upside the head for interfering in _his_ territory. A brief, vicious battle had followed, and the Fyarl had learned that fine lesson that it was never a good idea to engage in a fight right outside the largest silverware distributor for Manhattan. Or, he would’ve. Had he survived.

Frankly, Spike was just appalled by how many fake silver utensils he’d had to go through before he found a real one. Cheap Americans who cared more about gaudy image than actual _quality_ …

He’d fed from the two dead girls – no sense in letting a good meal go to waste – and taken the money from all three bodies. The Fyarl hadn’t had much. Just the few bills Spike had found first.

He dug deeper into his jacket pockets, frowned, and tried the inside pockets. _There_. Two neat piles of about eighty dollars apiece, folded perfectly down the middle and organized by denomination. Obviously tourists. But at least the girls had had enough sense not to carry _too_ much money.

But it was still the largest haul he’d ever brought in on a single night. Proud of his night’s work, he squeezed the money through the hole at the top of the empty peanut-butter jar he’d set on the counter for just this purpose. The can looked full for the first time. Only a handful of coins and a dozen ones and two fives had been there before tonight’s stash.

Spike had never really thought much about money before. After all, he could steal whatever he needed – which wasn’t much. Mostly just enough for smokes and the occasional bottle of booze. Although he hasn’t really been drinking since he came to New York. Odd, that.

But still, a pocket picked here and there had been more than enough to satisfy him. He’d come to slowly realize, though, that his companion was having to pinch pennies more and more every day. He didn’t know what Fred did – presumably it had _something_ to do with all those computers – but the money had been sparse lately. And it seemed only fitting that he take up a bit of the slack.

He’d tried to do that once before. Offer a girl his well-gotten gains. Been turned down flat, beaten, insulted, humiliated. Not even his money had been good enough. The memory had been enough to paralyze him for months while he watched Fred struggle.

But then one night she’d gone and done the unthinkable. Told him the words he’d needed to hear for so long. _Not a monster, not a thing, they’re all wrong…_

He’d still been nervous when he’d first put out the jar and started slipping bills inside. She’d been surprised at first, but then he explained, and she’d _smiled_. Actually smiled! Bloody angel was what she was, and not the poofter kind.

Some part of him was still afraid to give her the tainted stuff, though. Afraid she’d realize she was wrong and throw him out once more. So the ill-gotten bills he spent on himself; the rest went into that little jar. It was only fair, really. After all, she used the grocery money to buy his blood as well.

He wasn’t hungry that night, having already fed and well, but he checked the fridge anyway. Still plenty of blood. Enough to last him through the rest of the week at least. Humming under his breath, he routed through the bins, looking for something to satisfy his sweet tooth. Not much there beyond necessities, of course. But that was all right. He could live without food, after all; she could not.

While he was shuffling about, he heard a noise behind him. Instinctively, he spun about, fangs bared.

“Today’s the day, then?” Fred asked, looking sleepy in her pajamas. Tan flannel ones that were too big for her, dwarfing her small frame.

He shook his head and closed the refrigerator door. She’d asked him that question on and off since they’d first met, but more often since his little breakdown back in January. “Just startled me is all,” he answered, expression perfectly neutral.

She nodded and looked around the room as if she’d never seen it before and wasn’t much impressed.

He didn’t particularly like being around her when she was in one of her spacey moods. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what she was thinking about, but it was like he wasn’t even there. It was unnerving. “Couldn’t sleep?” he broke the silence.

She started as if she hadn’t expected him to speak again. “No,” she answered wearily. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she looked more gaunt than usual. Probably not feeding herself right.

“Nightmares?” he ventured.

She gave him a non-responsive little shrug. “Are you going to want to…?” She gestured vaguely back toward the bedroom.

“Not if you’re too tired, pet,” he replied softly.

He knew he shouldn’t give a damn about this girl. She was just a cheap lay he’d picked up one night, no different than all the others. But something about her – that strength that kept her going even when it was obvious she just wanted to crumble and die – had kept him close. Maybe it was even a morbid fascination at first. To see if this little girl would outlast him.

But she’d turned out to be much more. That night had been a turning point for him, the night when he’d truly planned to end it all, to finish her off and start all over again. He thought that maybe he’d let her live, but he was getting too drawn in. Too permanent, too much contact, too much closeness.

Until she’d gone and done the one thing that no one else had ever done in all his one-hundred-twenty-plus years on this earth. She’d looked at both the man and the monster all at once, and she hadn’t drawn back. Hadn’t tried to force him one way or the other. Just let him be as he was.

He’d not only let her live that night, but he’d given himself to her, truly, for the first time. She hadn’t screamed; she hadn’t run; she hadn’t kicked him in the head.

It made her all the more dangerous to him, because he craved what she’d given him and was afraid of it all at once. If only she recovered herself enough to care, she could destroy him now. Neat and tidy.

He should hate her for that, and a part of him did. A part of him was still convinced that she’d wake up one day, see him, and tell him just how despicable he really was. It had been obvious to everyone else he’d ever met. All his faults bright and shinning for the world to see.

“I think I’m going to work, then,” she commented belatedly, cutting him from his reveries.

“You should eat first,” he pointed out.

“Eat? Oh…right.” She blinked slowly as if the idea hadn’t even occurred to her.

“There are some eggs in the fridge,” he added helpfully.

She nodded, smiled slightly, and began preparing her breakfast.

With no need for food or blood, he turned to the only remaining option in the kitchen and brewed some coffee. It smelled rich and warm and alive, and even Fred perked up at the scent. He poured her a cup, too, and set it down on the small table across from him.

He himself sat facing the stove, watching her as she poked at the scrambled eggs at regular intervals with the spatula. “Microwave still broken?” he asked absentmindedly.

“Yeah.” She looked apologetic. “I’ll have a look at it today.”

“No rush, luv. Stove works just as well for heatin’ blood.”

“But slower.”

His lips quirked in amusement. “Much slower,” he agreed. It hadn’t taken much for her to learn of his infamous impatience.

“I picked up some of that wall plaster at the hardware store yesterday,” she provided.

He winced. That hole he’d put in the bedroom wall was still there. They were, quite possibly, the best pair of procrastinators on earth. Either that, or they just didn’t care about little things like mending holes and keeping their place in good repair.

“’ll do it,” he insisted.

“I can—”

“No, I will.” He was vehement enough that she shrugged it off.

Her cooking finished to her satisfaction, she found a clean plate and sat across him to eat. Both slipped slowly at their coffee. Neither said a word.

And yeah, Spike thought, this was comfortable. Routine. Simple. He could live with this. So long as he didn’t get _too_ comfortable…


	7. Month Seven

“Rise and shine, sleepy!”

Spike groaned in disbelief, convinced this was some horrible nightmare. But then the bed was shaking like someone was bouncing up and down on it… _Still a nightmare_ , he insisted to himself. _I’m just back in California. It’s an earthquake. Someone does_ not _have so much of a death wish as to wake me up this early in the afternoon…_

“You know this coat of yours?” Fred asked with false sweetness, picking up the jacket in question. “I was thinking of running it through the Laundromat. You don’t think bleach will do anything to black leather, do you?”

And, with that, he sputtered into horrified consciousness. “Gimme,” he mumbled lazily, snatching back his jacket.

Fred just giggled shamelessly as he growled at her and tried his best to look menacing with the world’s most chaotic bed-hair.

“What the fuck is wrong with _you_?” he grumbled, burying his head back in the pillows and clutching his duster to his chest for safekeeping.

“Nothing,” she commented, still amused. “Just trying to wake you up.”

“Wake me up later. Sleep now.”

She sighed. It just figured that vampires would be impossible to wake up. She’d never really tried before, but it was horribly predicable and clichéd. Biting her lower lip, she considered her dilemma once more.

“I’ve got something to show you,” she insisted, nudging at his shoulder.

“Will it spontaneously pop out of existence within the next three hours?” he demanded gruffly.

“Hey, I didn’t object when you dragged me out to see that motorcycle…” She considered for a moment making a similar threat to that precious possession as she had with the jacket, but she refrained. He did have a point after all. Nothing that couldn’t wait…

She gave up on him for the moment and returned to the kitchen. She’d woken up that morning and just hadn’t felt like working that day. Weeks upon weeks of nothing but equations had wound her brain up tight, and she needed a bit of a break. So she’d gotten out a mop and cleaner from the hall closet and set herself upon the menial task of spring-cleaning. Good, brainless work that allowed her to focus in and out, paying attention but not. It was satisfying then. What she needed.

Of course, when she looked out the window, she could see that spring-cleaning was a bit early here. And what sort of crazy place still had snow on the ground in _March_? But at least it wasn’t snowing today, although a wind that she was quite sure was freezing cold whipped against the windows, picking up speed and force in the narrow tunnels that the streets created between the buildings.

With nothing else to do while Spike slept, she searched for something else to clean. Every single computer monitor she owned got a scrubbing, complete with Windex, and she returned to the kitchen to dispose of the dirty paper towels.

“You cleaned the kitchen? That’s _it_?!”

She was surprised to see Spike standing in the doorway to the bedroom, white hair still tousled from sleep, chest bare and gray sweatpants riding low on his hips. Wow. He looked scrumptious. Fred had never noticed just how handsome he was. Or, she had been dimly aware of the fact, but she’d never taken time to dwell…

“You’re awake.” She tore her gaze from where the sharp line of one hipbone vanished beneath his sweats.

“Yeah, you did a nice job,” he commented lazily. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

“It wasn’t the kitchen I was going to show you, silly.” She shook her head, tossing the paper towels into the garbage and washing her hands in the sink. “You up for a trip?”

He blinked lazily. “Did you just call me ‘silly’?” he asked, confused.

She shook her head. “I can’t be in a good mood?” she demanded, leaning back against the counter to watch him.

“If the world’s ending…” he joked lightly.

She giggled. “It’s spring,” she informed him.

He got this thoroughly goofy expression on his face, a weird cross between a ‘huh?’ and a frown and a yawn. And Fred was surprised that she found it completely adorable. In fact, _he_ was kind of adorable when she thought about it…

“’S snowin’,” he finally insisted.

“It’s just windy,” she insisted. “But today,” she paused for emphasis, “is the first day of spring.”

He blinked, counted the days in his head. “ _That’s_ what you’re so excited about?” he blinked in disbelief.

“This cold has to end,” she agreed more cheerfully than he’d ever seen her. “Winter’s over, and somehow or other we lived through it.”

He blinked _very_ slowly.

“So we’re going out,” she announced. “It’s tradition.”

“Tradition?” He scratched his hair lazily, still trying to reconcile himself to happy!Fred.

She nodded. “First day of spring we find the nearest Texas barbecue and eat spicy ribs ‘til we can’t see straight.” She patted him lightly on the cheek.

He blinked again. Poor, confused vampire. “You’re from Texas? Never told me that…” He fixated upon the one random point.

“Born and bred, hon.” She slipped her arms around his waist affectionately before affecting a look of mock surprise. “You’re from England? You never told me!”

He growled at her. But then he couldn’t fight his amusement at her sarcasm, so he compromised. He smirked. “Fine,” he agreed, caving in to the irresistible force that was Fred.

She gulped when he smirked at her like that. Wow. Her mind was going to happy places again. Damn, he was hot! How had she not noticed? Had she been blind for the past six months? She was quickly learning that there was a big difference between alleviating her lusts with him and lusting after _him_ in particular. Wow…

“I found a decent place,” she announced, wetting suddenly dry lips. “Only a ten minute walk, amazingly.”

He sighed. “Better get dressed, then. No point in tryin’ to sleep when you’re in a mood like this…”

The thought of him naked at that moment overwhelmed her, and she opted to wait in the kitchen. Okay, this was weird. It felt like she was fully awake for the first time in as long as she could remember. Almost like the world had been hidden from her in this gray haze, and now it was slowly lifting. And the kitchen had _really_ needed cleaning…

He emerged from the bedroom in his usual ensemble – black shirt, jeans, boots, and coat. Silver chain around his neck that she always liked to run between her fingers in the aftermath; black belt with its thick silver buckle that always thwarted her when she was the most desperate; several of those silver rings he wore on his fingers that felt so good inside her.

 _My vampire._

She smiled shyly, as if realizing for the first time that she’d actually had _sex_ with him. Kinky, inappropriate, ‘illegal in forty-eight states’ sex. Wow.

“You all right?” he asked cautiously as they left the apartment. It was one question they refrained from asking each other at almost all costs.

She bit her lip and walked beside him, slipped her arm through his just because she could. “I feel alive…” she commented with awe.

His scarred brow lifted. It was kind of sexy and dangerous, she realized. She couldn’t remember ever taking the time to kiss that scar before. It was something she was going to have to do and soon.

“How’d you manage that?” His question sounded bland, but she could sense some deep emotion behind it. A deep, consuming pain. And she didn’t think it was for her. For himself, maybe?

“I-I don’t know,” she admitted.

He considered that, nodded slowly, and kept walking. “Did I help?” His question was so quiet, it was almost lost in the wind.

“Yeah,” she agreed, “I think maybe you did.” She paused. “I mean, yesterday I was feeling pretty gloomy, but today… Today was good. And maybe tomorrow won’t be. But I’ll remember today.”

“Your good days are better’n mine,” he commented ruefully.

“You were cute with your bike,” she insisted.

He shrugged. “That day wasn’t my best…” He trailed off.

She frowned, puzzling over his statement. Finally realized that he was actually talking about one of the darkest days she could remember. “Oh.”

“Yeah…” he sighed. “Look, I don’t need to eat, and I know you’re strapped for cash, so…” He moved to walk away. Undoubtedly to start his hunting pattern for the night.

Her grip on his arm tightened. “Not a chance,” she insisted. “I’ve got some extra, and there’s no way you’re getting out of this.”

“Why do you even need to…?” he began.

She shrugged. “I feel like company. And you’re the only company I’ve been able to tolerate in so long…” She’d never put words to the thought before, and she was startled to realize how true it was. “C’mon,” she added softly, her voice slightly pleading.

He didn’t fight her. Just followed her to the restaurant, sat across from her, and stole an occasional rib from her plate. Laughed at her jokes, mocked the bad country music with her, let her chat about mundane little things. Like her detailed discussion of every single barbecue place she’d ever been to. And how he was stuck going out with her for tacos next weekend.

It was nice. And Fred realized belatedly that all those months she hadn’t been alone at all…


	8. Month Eight

It was two in the afternoon. The perfect time for all good little vampires to be asleep in their beds. Fred had been typing away at her keyboard all afternoon, obviously lost in her work. So, really, he couldn’t blame her when he poked his head in suddenly and asked what the hell she was doing.

Spike grinned, amused despite himself as she leapt off her chair, one hand coming to rest over her heart as she gasped for breath. There was some part of him that would never get tired of scaring mortals.

“Are you trying to kill me?” she demanded, but this time it was more joking and not that disinterested suspicion that one day he’d grow bored with her and do her in.

“’S in the job description, innit?” he retorted with a smirk.

Fred just shook her head and sat back down in her computer chair. Soon, she was typing merrily away once more.

He sighed. He couldn’t explain why, but today the typing had woken him up. It wasn’t like she hadn’t done the exact same thing every afternoon for months now. Hell, the annoying birds singing outside the bedroom window were louder, so long as she shut the door like she always did. But today he’d woken up, and for the first time he’d felt a bit of curiosity. Just what _did_ she do in that room all day, anyway?

“And, speakin’ of job descriptions,” he added casually, stepping into the little computer room for the first time in… Well, he could only remember three times he’d ever actually been in here before. “Just what’re you up to?” he repeated his earlier question, head cocked to one side as he studied the mass of wires and terminals and electric whatnot.

Fred looked up at him over thin wire-rim glasses, obviously surprised he was still there. It seemed his girl got more caught up in her work than he’d ever noticed.

“Why do you…?” she began to ask, then trailed off and shrugged. “I’m testing this new software,” she answered.

He nodded slowly, peeking his nose around the corners of the room, exploring a little. “What’s it do, then?”

She frowned. “It’s supposed to solve complex physics equations,” she explained, paying more attention to him than to the screen before her now as he poked around. “The university’s developing it, and they’re paying me to do most of the beta testing.”

“That’s lookin’ for bugs, right?”

She blinked. Surprise, maybe? He reckoned that after living with Angel and his horrible case of techno-phobia, she’d just come to figure that all vampires were as hopeless. A lot of people made ridiculous assumptions about vampires as a whole from looking at Angel and/or Angelus. Bloody poofter…

“Yup,” she agreed. “What are you…?”

He’d picked up some little white box that was attached to one of the computers, turning it over and squinting at it as if that would tell him what it was. “Just curious, pet,” he offered, setting the box back down.

“It’s a back-up CD burner,” she answered his unspoken question anyway, popping off the lid so that he could see.

He grinned and put it back in its place. “So that’s what you do in here all day, is it?” he said after a brief pause. As soon as the typing had picked up again, anyway.

She sighed. He seemed not to want to let her get any work done this afternoon. “That’s what they’re paying me for right now,” she corrected. “Mostly. Sometimes I do some data collection, too. I used to do quite a lot, but then I finished configuring the software to work with the University network, so they do most of it now.”

“That’s why you needed all these extra computers,” he guessed.

Further surprise. “Yeah,” she agreed.

He was silent then, and she got back to work. He never left the room, but he watched her for a good twenty minutes, watched her type in apparent gibberish, then turn to her little notepad and start scribbling away. The computer would give her more gibberish back.

Normally, it would’ve been immensely boring to him, but his mind hadn’t had a real problem to wrap itself around it for as long as he could remember. He had the hunt and the kill, of course, but those weren’t enough to sustain him. Sometimes a particularly tricky kill that required a bit of study and planning before he closed in satisfied this _need_ in him. Not too much planning, though. His demon didn’t have the patience for that.

It was one of the great ways in which he’d always differed from Angelus. The great oaf had been able to satisfy every fabric of his being with the elaborate warped seductions that consumed his entire being. Spike killed for the spur-of-the-moment thrill, and making his victims exceptionally miserable beforehand had never brought him any extra pleasure.

So, in the past, he’d settled for other outlets for his more human impulses. It had been poetry throughout his human life. Once he turned vampire, he’d gone for novels instead. That had tapered into theater for a while, and then when motion pictures had first come about, he’d dragged Dru to every one he could find. Of course, what with her being out of her mind, the experience had gotten a bit too surreal for him. He’d snuck looks when she wasn’t around, but that wasn’t often.

So he’d moved on to museums. These had suited Dru better, since she could play with the night guards while he wandered about the marble halls. Of course, then art had turned to crap. Fortunately, radio and literature seemed to be back. Art moved in waves, Spike had noticed. One form plunged and another rose. One decade it would be books, the next music. Movies, theater, dance, drugs, paintings, television.

But now, he’d been stuck in this little apartment for quite a while, watching the telly occasionally, but certainly not regularly. He and Fred did talk once in a while, but not often. It didn’t feel like he really knew her.

So most of his life had become the hunt, and it just wasn’t enough for him.

Maybe that was why his curiosity was piqued now. Something new.  Something unknown.  Something to apply his mind to.

He leaned in. “What do all those symbols mean?”

She started again and glared at him. He grinned. It was the simplest of vampire tricks. Stay still and unmoving, make yourself part of the background so that no mortals would spot you. He hadn’t done it intentionally just now; he’d just drifted off into thought. But he certainly didn’t mind showing off a bit. Especially since she didn’t seem put off by his vampireness in the slightest.

“I’m just running through basic calculus stuff right now,” she answered his question, despite whatever annoyance she might have been feeling toward him.

“So what’s that?” He pointed to what looked like a lowercase delta.

“That’s a partial derivative.”

“What’s that mean?”

She sighed. “It indicates the rate of change of one variable in respect to another variable.”

He nodded, not really understanding but trying to wrap his mind around it all anyway. “What’s that?”

“It’s an infinite sum.”

“And what’s it do?”

She giggled slightly. “It just keeps adding forever and ever.”

He frowned. Sounded boring as hell, actually.

“It’s one.”

“Huh?” He blinked at her.

“If you add it up forever, it turns out to be one,” she clarified.

“If you add it up forever, you’ll be long dead before you ever get to one,” he retorted cheekily.

She giggled again and patted the extra seat beside her.

With nothing better to do, he sat down and watched her type several random commands. The input screen she’d been using vanished and, in its place, was a grid of squares. A thick line labeled X ran the width of the image, and Y ran the height.

“This is the X-Y plane,” she pointed.

Well, that was simple enough. “Right,” he agreed.

She typed in a little equation at the bottom of the screen. “This is the sine function.”

He blinked slowly, trying to follow her, watching as she ran through several different pictures until he could see what she was talking about. Neat. Not a bad way to learn something, either. When he’d been a kid, they’d just memorized their tables and charts and facts. Not much to it at all.

But what she was showing him now was all sorts of strange mathematical stuff that he’d heard vaguely of on the telly but never had the vaguest inkling of before. Fred was smart, he suddenly realized. He’d known that she wasn’t a dimwit all along, of course, but he’d never had an opportunity to see her like this. She was _very_ smart. A scientist, apparently. The grand educated of this day and age.

Compared to her, he was light-years in the past. (And he’d gotten himself a lengthy lecture on light-years, and time and space and how none of it was what it seemed, while he was at it.) But she seemed to have fun showing him pictures and charts and equations on her little computer. And, when that didn’t work, she drew pictures in her notebook. She liked talking about this stuff, it seemed.

And, hell, it wasn’t like he had anything else to listen to. Not that he’d ever paid all that much attention to science before, but it didn’t bore him entirely. Neat that men had walked on the moon, even if they had defiled it by playing bleeding _golf_ and tacking the name of that criminal president up there – oh how Dru had cried over that – and these alternate realities and such that Fred went on about weren’t so dull. Put a different perspective on the demon world.

It wasn’t an unpleasant afternoon. And, when he’d felt his interest wane and his lust rise, Fred had slipped those sweet little thighs of hers right around him and complimented him on his intelligence.

Funny. No one had said that to him once in all the years since he’d been turned. He made her come twelve times that evening in appreciation.


	9. Month Nine

If anyone had asked Fred – and the only person around to really do so was Spike, and he was unlikely to do so – she wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint exactly when their lives together had shifted. She couldn’t even definitively describe the change, although some symptoms were apparent.

In the early days they’d been rather like two roommates who never saw each other, living together for efficiency’s sake. The analogy fell apart, of course, when you considered that they’d screwed each other silly, but a similar distance was there. Two people living together without any real connection.

Things were different now, though. Perhaps they’d both grown bored with the constant solitude. Perhaps they’d both seen the supreme silliness of hunting all night, working all day, and avoiding the other at all costs, except for the occasions during which they came violently and passionately together. Or perhaps those few personal moments they’d shared even in the earlier days had magnified exponentially, leading inevitably toward this current comfortable companionship.

Fred wasn’t sure, and she really didn’t care all that much. All she knew was that she didn’t feel alone anymore, and that was _better_ than the way she had been. It was probably an illusion, she realized, like that false companionship she’d thought she’d known at Angel Investigations. They hadn’t known the secret darkness within her, and when they’d finally seen what she could do, they’d shunned her. Spike hadn’t shunned her when she’d first met him, and he didn’t know about the man she’d murdered. She was of a split mind as to how he’d react. She severely doubted he’d chastise her as Angel had done – the height of hypocrisy – but he might not respect her as much.

She simply didn’t know. There were a lot of things she didn’t know – about him and herself – she was coming to realize.

“Call.”

Spike smirked, leaning back on his elbows against the pillows at the head of the bed, and laid his hand down. “Threes and jacks.”

Fred frowned. “Dammit!” she swore, laying her hand down slowly. She watched the victory light up brighter in his eyes as she closed in for the kill. “’Cause if I hadn’t gotten that last diamond, I wouldn’t have a flush right now.”

His victory turned to a low snarl when he saw that she’d bluffed him out again. “You lied to me,” he accused huffily.

“You mean that part about how I said I’d never played before, but I really meant I’d been the dorm champion all through college and grad school?” Fred teased, savoring her moment.

He grumbled. “Deal.” Never one to back down from a challenge.

She just smiled to herself and shuffled the cards neatly. No point in pretending she didn’t know all those fancy cards tricks now. She showboated for him a little until his growl was a deep rumble that filled the room. “Cut,” she asked sweetly.

Sullenly, he did so.

She hadn’t spent that day working, instead opting to continue their card game from the night before. He’d stayed home to watch reruns of the A-Team, and she’d mocked him and watched right alongside him, munching popcorn as she did so. Yeah, friendly roommates wasn’t a bad analogy. They kept each other company when they were bored, went out to eat, talked and argued.

Of course, their conversations never turned to the time _before_. That was an immense, concrete wall between them – or perhaps around each of them? – never to be breached.

Fred had been feeling bolder lately, though. And sometimes boundaries could be fun to play with. He’d taught her enough about that in bed…

She dealt out their hands.

“What?” he finally inquired, noticing that she’d been silent, thinking hard and obviously not about the cards.

“Do you ever think about how much easier this is?” she asked quietly.

He frowned, puzzling over her comment. Asked for two cards. “What’s easier?”

She snatched two cards for herself. Damn. Pair of tens and nothing else. “Living now, as opposed to…” her voice quieted to a whisper, “y’know, living with _them_.”

“Never lived with your lot,” he reminded her.

She shrugged. “Same difference. They were both the same… I mean, they drove you out somehow.” She watched his frown deepen. “And they drove me out. For the same reasons, I’ll bet.” She sighed. “They didn’t understand the good you were doing, either, did they?”

“You’re trying to distract me from my game,” he accused, changing the subject.

She was relentless. “Were they the ones who told you all that? That ‘monster’ rant of yours?”

“Why,” he retorted snidely, “they tell it to you, too?”

She bit her lip. “Oh yeah…” she agreed with a sigh.

He blinked up at her, obviously surprised. “Call.”

“Pair of tens.”

“Three sixes.”

She handed the deck over to him. They didn’t have enough money to really play, so they were using M&Ms as chips. And if the ‘chips’ kept getting eaten at this rate, they wouldn’t have anything to play for soon.

He dealt silently, and she watched his hands. Raised her eyebrows when she caught him cheating. He shook his head slowly and shuffled again. She didn’t catch anything amiss this time. That didn’t mean that he hadn’t pulled some trick faster than her eye could see, though.

“Were they outta their minds?” he finally asked.

“Mmm?” She had forgotten what they were talking about, caught up in the game and dark memories.

“I mean, you’re not exactly Angelus, luv,” he retorted. “What could Angel possibly have against you? Soddin’ hypocrite.”

She shrugged. “You might be surprised.” She didn’t want to answer that now, not yet. Some part of her felt as though she were clinging to these moments of… Not happiness, exactly. Not even peace, really. Just…acceptance. _Being._ She wasn’t ready to find out what the truth about her past would mean to their arrangement. She probably shouldn’t have brought up this topic of conversation then, she realized.

He seemed to sense her reticence, though, because he dropped the matter. They played one hand, two. Fred won the deal back on the third. As she dealt the cards, she could feel Spike’s eyes on her, and they felt like a weight bearing down, peering inside and trying to ferret out her darkest secrets. She remembered suddenly, with a panic, that some vampires had telepathic abilities. Was he one of them? Was he reading her thoughts, even as she tried to conceal them?

A near hysterical little giggle escaped her lips. “‘Can you read my mind?’” she half-sang, her voice as lousy as she could manage it.

She hadn’t expected a response, hadn’t expected that he would get it. But then he cracked up, laughing deep within his chest, the corners of his eyes crinkling with little smile lines.

“Bloody _horrible_ scene, that was,” he shuddered.

“When I was a kid, I actually cheered when Lois Lane died.” She still snickered at the thought.

“Well, she was right annoying, wasn’t she?” he retorted. “Unfair bringin’ her back like that. Ruined the whole flick. Well, that and that horrible song.”

She smiled at him softly. Laid out her pair of kings. He had nothing. Her deal again.

He was silent for a moment, contemplating. “Whatever they said about you,” he finally began.

She looked up, curious and maybe a little afraid.

“’S nothing,” he insisted. “Angelus wouldn’t know what’s right if it smacked him on the forehead. Makes the woman he claimed to love miserable forever out of some stupid martyr complex. Ruins lives just as much now as he did before. More, maybe. Since his victims never used to live on…” He trailed off as if remembering some past horror.

“You’re still here,” she pointed out slowly.

He frowned. “’m one of the few,” he countered, then shook his head. “Anyway,” he insisted, “’ve seen you all these months. And I can’t imagine what you could’ve done to piss ‘em all off. You even gave a creature like me a chance, and some of the _best_ ,” he said that word sarcastically, like he’d used to believe it was true but didn’t anymore, “wouldn’t give me that.”

She bit her lip. “You don’t know what I’ve done…”

“And you don’t know what _I’ve_ done,” he retorted. “I can guarantee you, mine’s much worse.”

She didn’t have anything to say to that. After all, he was a vampire. He’d probably managed atrocities she couldn’t even _think_ of. She tried to think of the worst thing she could imagine, and instead of bloody murders, she saw Wes’ face, promising her protection and salvation and _imprisonment_. Saw the delighted light in his eyes that she’d been cast aside, too, so that he could finally snatch her up. His perfect little doll. There was madness in there, obsession.

She looked back up at Spike. “Maybe,” she agreed, “but it’s not the worst I’ve seen.”


	10. Month Ten

Something indefinable had changed with Fred over the last few months, and Spike was having a hard time trying to figure out just what it was. She was happier, yeah, but there was something more to it than that. Something deeper. Something that he didn’t know whether he should fear or trust.

Funny that this little slip of a girl was the one thing that could still terrify him. The war he was fighting every night – or, more accurately, the war he was trying to _end_ by killing off both sides – had gotten ten times more intense in the last two months.

He’d thought he was crazy at first. Two Slayers one night. One the next. Another two days later. And on and on. That first night he’d just assumed Buffy and Faith had both met their makers – and shouldn’t he have felt some pain at the thought of Buffy’s death? – and had just left it at that. The second night _could_ have been an amazing coincidence: One of the girls he’d done in the night before replaced the very next day and in the very same city. But after that first week was through, the options had narrowed to two: Either the Powers were hell-bent on sending every single damn Slayer they could call after him, or there were a hell of a lot more Slayers around all of a sudden. Not even Spike flattered himself enough to believe it was the former.

The Slayer of Slayers was suddenly back to doing what he did best and with frightening regularity, too. Hard to imagine now that killing a mere two had been enough to beef his reputation up. He easily did that many every week now, and he had the bruises to prove it.

But the sudden, even-more-desperate struggle for his very existence didn’t frighten him. He knew Slayers, and they’d never scared him. They couldn’t hurt him. Not really. But Fred he feared, like he’d once feared Buffy. And it hadn’t been the Slayer in her, either, but that little girl that could look at him so softly at times…

Angrily, he shook the thought off. The truth of the matter was that he feared _himself_. _“There’s a traitor here beneath my breast.”_ He’d sung that to Buffy once, so long ago, and it was the ultimate truth of his existence. Once, when he’d been young and naïve, he’d thought love a beautiful thing, something to bring him happiness, companionship, comfort. He couldn’t help but laugh at himself now. Because the cruel truth of the matter was that love was the cruelest bitch this world had ever known, and all it’d ever bring him was pain and suffering.

Death, he could handle. More pain? That was another matter entirely…

Which was why a geeky little girl from Texas was more dangerous to him than all the Slayers in the world. At first, it had been just fun and games with her, yeah. Shagging didn’t have to mean anything if you didn’t want it to, and he most certainly did _not_ want it to. She’d been of like mind in those days. Cold comfort. It hadn’t worked so badly when it was what _both_ of them wanted. They hadn’t been people in those days, just needy bodies. It had been bliss.

But lately…

Something in Fred had changed. She was talking to him now, curious about him, asking him questions about himself. And it was just making things worse. Because it made him realize that, yeah, there were things he was curious about too that he hadn’t even thought about before. Dozens of questions he really should’ve known the answers to by now, given that he’d been living with this girl for almost a year.

And it terrified him.

Terrified him when she’d slip into bed some afternoons when he was awake and try to explain the basics of quantum mechanics or some such to him.

Terrified him when she’d give him that hopeful little smile and take his hand and drag him to some restaurant or park or museum.

Terrified him when he’d make some snarky comment and, rather than insulting him or deriding him, she’d laugh that delightful little laugh of hers and kiss him.

Terrified him because something in her was alive once more, and life in her was so catching – so _potent_ – that it was trying to relight the flame within him as well.

It was a horrible situation, really. He wished she was dead again, wished he could take back whatever it was that he had done to bring that spark back to life. And, oh, wasn’t that an irony to top all other ironies?

And, really, at the very least, would it _kill_ her to hate him now that she was back to herself? What was _wrong_ with her, anyway? She was supposed to resent him, despise him, finally realize how worthless he was and let him know every minute of every day. That, he could deal with. That, he _had_ dealt with, and it was all he knew.

This, what she was doing, it was different, and it gave him…

 _Hope._

He shivered at the word, never wanted to hear it again.

Fred looked up at him at that, and he fought the eerie sensation that she could see straight into his soul. Mind. Demon. Whatever. Whatever it was in him that felt and suffered just as intensely as any human he’d ever met, despite all of Buffy’s sanctimonious moralizing.

“Are you ever,” she began slowly, carefully, scrutinizing him as she spoke, “frightened of me?”

He gulped, and that horrifying feeling of connection increased a hundred-fold. Best to cover it up. Hide deep inside where the pain could never reach him again. “Why?” he smirked. “You frightened of me?”

She snorted at that and rolled her eyes. “If you don’t start learning to pick your towels up off of the bathroom floor, yeah,” she teased lightly, eyes sparkling.

So easy to smile back. Infectious, she was, making him feel all light and relaxed when really he had to be more wary than he ever had in his unlife. “So says the woman with seventy-eight computer cables.”

She shrugged in agreement at that. “But seriously,” her voice sounded subdued this time, “are you ever frightened of me?”

She wasn’t going to let this drop, then. Great. Best to play it safe. He’d tried telling the truth for so long and just look at where it’d gotten him… “Think I could take you if you ever decided my heart needed to make intimate acquaintance with a piece of pointy wood,” he joked.

She smiled softly, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Would you be frightened if I told you I’d killed someone?”

He snorted, shook his head, and turned his attention back to his book.

A brief silence followed, and he almost hoped that she’d go off and work with her bloody machines. No such luck, though.

“I _did_ kill someone.”

Her confession was meek, frightened, and made it impossible for him to blow this whole thing off. He sighed. “What’d he do?” he asked curiously.

Fred started at that. Not the response she’d been expecting, obviously. “W-What makes you say…?”

“You don’t exactly strike me as the trigger-happy type, pet,” he pointed out. “So, either some Big Bad got its claws into you, made you go on a rampage, and you’re obsessin’ unnecessarily over it – which is somethin’ I would hope a girl of your smarts would avoid.”

“Or?”

“The bastard really deserved it. Eatin’ babies, was he?”

She laughed. “No, he was sending innocent grad students off into a demon dimension where they were served up for lunch. To weed out the academic competition.” There was a bitterness in her voice that spoke from experience.

“Tried to get you, too,” he guessed.

“ _Did_ get me, too,” she corrected.

He frowned at that, trying to puzzle over that particular paradox.

“I spent five years in that hellhole,” she informed him, an anger in her voice that he’d never heard before. “Angel finally saved me.”

“He likes doin’ that,” Spike commented non-committally. “Helpless li’l girls ‘ve always been his specialty.”

“Yeah,” she grimaced. “He didn’t like me so much when I wasn’t helpless anymore.”

Spike snorted. “This bloke that sent you over?”

“Seider. To Pylea,” she clarified curtly.

“Py-fucking-lea?” he repeated in disbelief. Now, that _was_ impressive. Any human who could survive there had more to her than met the eye. Of course, he’d already known that about Fred. He didn’t even know why it surprised him.

She shrugged.

“So, this Seider bloke. He was human, am I right?” he inquired.

“And all humans deserve to live, even if they’re worse than half the demons out there,” she rattled off sarcastically.

“Now, _there’s_ a familiar tune…” Spike agreed.

“I believe I got some lecture on how only the human justice system should be allowed to deal with human monsters.”

He let out a bark of laughter. “Because, of course, the police know _so_ well how to handle wizards and the like.”

“They live by demon rules,” Fred shrugged, “they get punished by rules that apply to demons. It’s the only way that works.”

Spike just shook his head. “Can see why you became a bit less popular with ol’ Angelus…”

“I figured it was better not to stick around and find out,” she agreed. “The look in his eyes…”

Spike gulped. He had his own last look buried deep within his memory, and he avoided it at all costs. “Yeah,” he managed to whisper.

She frowned at him. “Are you are right?” she asked.

“Fine.” He swallowed the rest of his blood in one long swig.

“You look pale. I mean, paler than usual…”

“Just on my way out.” He tossed the mug haphazardly in the sink, grabbed his coat, and was out the door before she could protest. It was still twilight, and the light was harsh on his eyes. But he had to get away, now, before it was too late. Before he told what had…what he had…

He didn’t get far, just to the nearest bench, and he sat down with his head in his hands.

 _Can’t tell her. Can’t ever tell her. Can’t see the hatred in her eyes, too…_

He didn’t even let himself think of what would happen if he told her and she _didn’t_ hate him. Because that would be worse. So much worse, so much more dangerous for him…

A flick of metal, and he had a blade against his throat. “Gimme your wallet,” demanded a gruff voice.

And Spike grinned. Yes, this was what life was about now. The feel of bones snapping, the satisfaction of victory, of blood pouring down his throat. Fair game, fair hunt. Excitement and violence like he’d always craved it, with no more silly birds holding him down.

And Fred…

Fred was an amusement. A warm body. A free fuck-buddy.

Really, she was…


	11. Month Eleven

“A little help here?”

Fred looked up from her computer, frowning. She could hear him making distressed little noises in the bathroom as she often could when he’d come back from hunting for the evening. They had a sort of silent pact between them that she didn’t interfere, didn’t ask what sunk its teeth in his arm or what stabbed him in the side, so that his body became a walking mystery to her. Scars and wounds appeared nightly that she never asked about. She just avoided them as she pleasured him, watched them slowly fade to nothing.

For him to call for her help… She gulped. He must’ve been dying.

“What is it?” she asked calmly, coolly, instinctively picking up a professional scientific manner even though her preferred science had been physics instead of medicine.

She leaned against the doorframe of the bathroom, blinking at the bright light that lit up the white tile, creating a jarring glare. And it was looking at that tile that she noticed the droplets of blood.

“’m bleeding,” Spike pointed out unnecessarily.

She looked at him where he sat on the closed toilet seat, clutching his side, a nasty purple bruise already forming around his left eye. And, as she looked more closely, she noticed that his black attire had fooled her for a moment, concealing the thick stickiness of his own blood.

“What happened?” she breathed in horror, stepping into the bathroom, feeling her stomach clench when she realized that something sharp and blood-soaked was sticking out of his arm. His thigh, too.

“Got in a bit ‘f a scrape,” he understated. “Could use some help getting the coat off, yeah?”

She nodded and didn’t ask any more questions. She surveyed his wounds and concluded that if he’d been human, he’d have been long dead by now. “Is your left arm okay?”

“Right as rain,” he agreed. But he still winced slightly when she pulled the leather sleeve off of that arm. There didn’t seem to be any blood, though.

His right arm was an entirely different matter. She frowned at the blood and torn flesh, trying to decipher what she was seeing. “Is that an arrow?”

“Crossbow,” he nodded.

She bit her lower lip. “I don’t suppose you know if it was barbed?”

“Not a clue.”

“OK, I’m not going to be able to pull it out until I know.”

He nodded at her reasonable decision.

She pondered the problem for a moment. “I’m going to have to cut the shaft. Just a sec.” She was surprised how calm she was as she dug the scissors out of the kitchen drawer. She grabbed a bottle of whiskey too, for good measure. She returned to find him half passed out, but she put the bottle in his good hand anyway. He was going to need it before the night was through…

With a quick cut, she severed the wooden shaft that protruded from his arm. The blood had completely soaked through the leather, causing it to stick to his skin in a gooey paste. He winced when she peeled it back from his flesh, but gave no other sign that he was still conscious. There was just enough give in his coat for her to slip it off his arm over the remaining portion of the arrow. Funny that she didn’t think of cutting his coat any more than she would’ve thought of cutting his arm off.

Turning her attention back to the arrow, she frowned. It had struck at a deep angle. With a quick warning that this would hurt like hell, she tried to push it further in. The grating sound caused even her to flinch.

Spike was certainly awake now and moaning in pain.

“It looks like the bone stopped the arrow,” she informed him matter-of-factly. “I’m not going to be able to push it through.”

“You up for cuttin’ my arm open?” he asked hesitantly.

“If I need to,” she agreed. She looked down at his thigh. “That from the same crossbow?”

“Yeah,” he agreed with a little grunt of pain, stretching his leg out so that she could tend to it.

“I’m gonna try this one first, then,” she announced. Without asking, she cut off his pants leg.

“You wanted to get my pants off…” he began but was too weary to finish the innuendo.

She smiled slightly and examined the wound. This arrow had just barely stuck into his flesh. She had no trouble pushing it through, although Spike sure as hell swore up a storm. She was pretty sure he downed half the bottle right then. With an exclamation of triumph, she yanked the bolt from his leg, examining the tip.

“Non-barbed,” she informed him gently as she washed and bandaged the wound on his leg. The bandages wouldn’t help anything, of course, since he’d pretty much stopped bleeding – there were advantages to slow circulation – but they made him look that much tidier.

“Ah, good.” His voice sounded tired and quite a bit more upper class than usual. “I wasn’t looking forward to open surgery.”

She set her lips in a grim line as she cut away the sleeve of his shirt. It was already ruined beyond repair anyway. “Take a drink and on ‘three’.”

He took a deep swig, finishing the bottle.

“One, two—” She yanked on two of course, and he howled in pain.

“You bloody, lyin’ bitch!”

She smiled in satisfaction and dabbed at the arm wound. Felt a little sick when she thought she saw bone. “I’m going to have to stitch this up,” she informed him. “I’ll probably have to do your leg, too. If they don’t heal right…”

“Nothing I haven’t handled before,” he assured her.

“If you want, I can try to find a doctor who will treat demons?” she suggested just to get that option on the table.

“Don’t trust doctors. Always stickin’ chips in your brain, or lyin’ about takin’ chips out, or bummin’ off nests of Suvolte eggs on you,” he grumbled.

She tried not to beam too much on the implication that he _did_ trust her and shook off the rather strange references. She suspected he was a bit delirious by now. Probably drunk, too.

One good thing she _had_ learned from Angel Investigations was always to have an obscenely overstocked First Aid kit around. Including thread for stitches. She’d done enough work on the boys back in LA to close up Spike’s wounds quickly. Fairly small, neat stitches even. Without the danger of infection, those should heal up very nicely over the next couple of days.

She stripped him patiently, found more cuts and bruises, but all minor compared to the arrows. Whatever had gotten a hold of him to night had been nasty. She shuddered at the thought of meeting any such creature – creatures? – in a dark alley.

“’S the Schlayersh,” he slurred, head rolled back against the wall as she wiped the excess blood from his body.

Kneeling on the cold, white tile, yellow sundress drenched in his blood, she looked up at him, confused.

“Ganged up on me, they did,” he insisted.

A crease furrowed her brow. “Buffy and Faith…?” she began hesitantly.

He shook his head, wincing as if that motion caused him pain. “Other ones.”

“Buffy and Faith are dead, then.” The news was shaking even if she didn’t care for either of the women enough to mourn them.

But he shook his head again. “Lots’n’lotscha schlayers now. Five of ‘em jumped me. Swarmin’ like antsh all over…”

Fred blinked. Now that just wasn’t possible. “But there’s only one…well, two…”

“Don’t ask me. I just kill ‘em,” he grumbled.

She froze at that. Not surprising, now that she knew that something drastic had changed with the Slayer line. But still… Well, it certainly explained all the wounds he’d been receiving lately.

“So, yeah. Killed these, too. Nearly did me in, though.” He gave her a challenging look as if daring her to judge him, to hate him.

She sighed softly. “Let’s go to bed,” she informed him softly, stroking his hair gently.

He frowned, looking incredibly puzzled by her actions. It was her words he responded to, however. “Not sure ‘m gonna be of any good to you tonight,” he admitted sheepishly.

She giggled. She couldn’t help it. “I meant for sleep,” she corrected him. “I wouldn’t want you to exert yourself.”

“Oh…right.”

She helped him up, staggering under his weight and she half-carried him to bed. He winced and hissed with every movement, and it seemed like forever even to her before he lay on his side of the bed looking very badly beaten. She crawled in beside him, holding his good hand lightly in hers but not touching him in any other way lest she hurt him.

“I’ll go to the butcher’s as soon as they open in the morning.”

“Appreciate that, luv.”

She bit her lip, debating her next words. Finally ventured them quietly. “You didn’t have to tell me, you know. I mean, about what happened…what you do at night…” She trailed off, unsure of how to express herself.

“I know,” he agreed.

“Good.” No words were needed, apparently.

“But I figured you deserved to know.”

But words could still be so very nice…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was abandoned in 2004. Details why can be found [here](http://kantayra.livejournal.com/283920.html). An outline of what the final chapters would have looked like can be found [here](http://www.livejournal.com/users/kantayra/283736.html).


End file.
